olicy the cost of crime needs to be increased. One way this can be done is through deterrence; which involves raising the price of something to reduce the amount purchased. As a result, the maximum way to increase the cost of crime would be to introduce the death penalty.

This would lead to the risks of committing a crime increasing so the criminal has a greater decision to make when undertaking the cost benefit analysis. Many studies have provided strong support for the use of capital punishment for example Ehrlich. Ehrlich’s report shows a statistically significant negative relationship in the United States between the use of the death penalty and homicide rates where he derives a ‘trade-off between executions and murders’. On average he estimated “an additional execution per year may have resulted in seven or eight fewer murders.” However, like any scientific report Ehrlich’s research has been critiqued. Reports on critiques would suggest Ehrlich “failed to provide any reliable evidence that the death penalty deters murder.” This is because arguably his data is inadequate for purpose for example the quality of his data is questionable.

Despite many arguing capital punishment maximises deterrence, opposition would debate deterrence theory can be ineffective. One strong critique is the cost to the government capital punishment causes. These costs occur due to repeated trials for criminals, holding criminals whilst they wait and the specific cost of the death. As a result, these costs burden the government therefore would worsen the UK budgets deficit if imposed to enhance security policy. Furthermore, the theory of whether deterrence is efficient is questionable. On the one hand brutalisation would suggest that the death penalty can have an inverse effect encouraging higher murder rates. This is because the marginal cost of committing additional murders falls to zero. Therefore, criminals may execute more murders as they know the punishment is maximised to the death penalty. Moreover, a further critique to the death penalty is some may dispute that life imprisonment is a greater punishment than the death penalty. Beccari argued life imprisonment can be likened to ‘slavery’ therefore deters individuals from committing crime. In addition, his research showed some individua